In the business of online subscription-based media services such as NFL Game Pass, MLB.Com, Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime Instant Video, one of the biggest threats is the sharing of credentials by multiple non-paying users (sharers), where multiple users can view content using one subscription account.
Credential sharing can cause significant losses to a service provider due to, among other things, potential lost revenues from non-paying users, added cost in providing wasted resources (such as processing power, bandwidth of a content delivery network, etc.) to non-paying users, and poisoning of the brand of the service provider based on proclamations of stolen account credentials.
Sharing can be much more complicated with subscription-based media systems than for standard banking or credit card sites, which are only worried about rogue activity based on the input of stolen credentials. For example, in subscription-based media systems, users may willingly share their credentials to provide account access to other users. In subscription-based media systems, sharing may be performed by a multiplicity of users with a variety of motivations.
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